STAGE

25-Hour Improvathon

The Brodys want to move into a new space this year, so they're improvising around the clock to raise funds. Drop in any time to watch the chaos. The Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway., 224-2227. 4 pm Saturday-5 pm Sunday, Jan. 26-27. $7-$10, or $10-$15 for a 25-hour pass. All ages. Map

The Beard of Avon

There is a tremendous amount of labor on display at the Gerding Theater in Amy Freed’s nerdy comedy about who might have really written (at least according to a fringe contingent of conspiracy-minded scholars) the works attributed to William Shakespeare: From Deborah Trout’s stunning Elizabethan costumes and William Bloodgood’s handsome all-purpose set to the ensemble’s excellent comedic execution and a refreshingly restrained performance by Darius Pierce, it's blood sweat and tears all over. But the hardest labor of all must have come from Freed, whose intricate script is quick, clever and brainy, carefully tailored to appeal to a self-satisfied audience of lit majors and theater lovers. It must have taken ages to cram in this much trivia and artifice—but why bother? The play offers little in the way of moral or artistic satisfaction. It’s a tale told by an academic, full of in-jokes and bawdy humor, signifying nothing. See review. BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 pm Sundays. Alternates with Twelfth Night. See wweek.com or pcs.org for more details. Closes March 16. $16.50-$61.50. All ages. Map

Believers

This work in progress from Fever Theater, ostensibly a musical about cults, has some promise and a lot of problems. What works: great hypnotic music by John Berendzen, some nice movement directions and a few excellent inversions of the usual relationship between audience and performer. What doesn’t: The sensation of otherworldliness is an admirable goal, but it’s not fully formed here—maybe the subway sequence could be the preamble, replacing the awkward pre-show mingling; don’t name-check Xenu if the show isn’t actually about Scientology (which it isn’t); Comedysportz-style audience participation is silly and disruptive, and has got to go; to what end does the ensemble act out the hyperstylized morality play, anyway? They don’t seem to know. If helping a very different sort of theatrical experience come to fruition doesn’t sound onerous to you, check out Believers and give Fever your feedback. They’ll put it to good use. BEN WATERHOUSE. , 1120 SE Main St., Suite #102., 381-6814. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays. Closes Feb. 2. Wear comfortable shoes. $10-$20. All ages. Map

Blue Man Group: How to Be a Megastar 2.1

They're blue! They're men! They're rocking out! Rose Garden, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., 235-8771. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 26. $49.50-$85. All ages. Map

Bosoms and Neglect

[STAGED READING] Profile presents John Guare's play about romantic psychiatric patients. "Love in the time of lunacy" about sums it up. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 7:30 pm Monday-Wednesday, 2 pm Saturday, 7:30 pm Sunday. Closes Feb. 3. $10-$15. All ages. Map

The Clean House

What starts out as an entertaining series of encounters between stock characters—Lane (Susan Coromel), a humorless, uptight doctor, clad in white; Virginia (Marilyn Stacey), her humorless, uptight, neat-freak sister, in khaki; and Lane’s maid, Matilde (Amaya Villazan), who wears black, hates cleaning and would rather be a comedian like her parents, the funniest people in Brazil, who died in a tragic, humor-related murder-suicide when her father came up with a joke so good it killed—starts to go downhill when Lane’s husband, Charles (Shelly Lipkin), runs off with a 67-year-old cancer patient (Linda Williams Janke) and the whole thing degenerates into a maudlin mishmash of smug quirkiness and sentimentality, like a Lifetime movie penned by Gabriel García Márquez. By the time Charles heads for the Arctic to cut down a Pacific yew for his cancer-patient mistress and Lane overcomes her jealousy to care for her, the play is beyond all hope of recovery. See review. BEN WATERHOUSE. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes March 2. $20-$47. All ages. Map

The Communist Dracula Pageant

Meet Dracula. No, not that Dracula, though he’s invited as well. We’re talking about the communist Dracula: Nicolae Ceausescu, the former dictator of Romania. Anne Washburn’s new play, running in a workshop production at defunkt theatre, ambitiously attempts to encompass in 95 minutes a sketchy history of the Romanian revolution, nuanced portraits of the dictator and his wife and some dime-store philosophizing about the nature of freedom. It doesn’t quite succeed. The defunkt ensemble has impeccable comedic timing, and the show’s humorous scenes manage to hold the audience’s attention, but the story loses steam during a few scenes that don’t quite make sense to the viewer who comes without prior knowledge of the December Revolution—that is, almost all of us. The show is, nonetheless, worth seeing for Kenichi Hillis’ bizarre, toothy performance as Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes. He steals the show. See review. (Playwright Anne Washburn will lead talkbacks after the show Feb. 8 and 9.) The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 481-2960. 8 pm Thursdays-Sundays. Closes Feb. 16. $10-$15. All ages. Map

The Curate Shakespeare As You Like It

Try as they might, this energetic cast can’t save a sinking script. This meta-theatrical farce is so thoroughly and distractingly self-conscious that it never really gets going. The premise is this: A traveling repertory company attempts to put on Shakespeare’s As You Like It. But things keep going wrong: Amiens (Jonathan Lay) can’t remember his lines; William (Zachary Koval) has an existential identity crisis; Rosalind (Christy Bigelow) has gone temporarily crazy. What results is a lot of lag, and dead-end questions (“but how can I be Audrey and Rosalind at the same time?”) that ought to have been asked in Intro to Dramatic Lit. The actors—although at times they play it like a high-school show—have a good sense of Shakespearean bawdiness, and they do their best to liven things up, keeping the audience in stitches until Act II, when things really slow down. Why, it must be asked, do professionals possessing otherwise fine senses of artistic good taste insist on producing this sort of self-indulgent stinker? JOHN MINERVINI. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego., 635-3901. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 pm Sundays, 2 pm Feb. 10 and 17. Closes Feb. 17. $23-$25. All ages. Map

Exit the King

A ruler who has run his country into the ground now refuses to let go. Sound familiar? Probably its resonance with our current national leadership crisis prompted Arts Equity to take on Ionesco’s political satire, and it does a fine job playing up the similarities. King Berenger (Rod Harrel) and his court speak with thick Texas accents, and Berenger himself makes apelike facial expressions and frequently lets fly a sinister airy cackle—heh, heh, heh—that will be instantly familiar to anyone with a TV. This spirited production—nimbly directed by Llewellyn Rhoe—successfully straddles the line between tragedy and farce, and it has the advantage of lending itself to contemporary allegory. Unfortunately, the script hasn’t aged well; what may have challenged audiences in 1962 drags in the new millennium. The second act features unforgettable monologues by Berenger and Queen Marguerite (Virginia Belt), and, in general, the performances are solid. However, not all characters speak with the same accent—the maid is French, the guard is German, and the actors step on each others’ lines. JOHN MINERVINI. The Main Street Theater, 606 Main St., Vancouver., 360-695-3770. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 16. $10-$24. All ages. Map

A Few Stout Individuals

The second play of Profile Theatre’s season of John Guare looks great—but don’t let it fool you. This purported comedy about the writing of Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs is brutal. It’s not all the actors’ or director’s fault, though—Guare’s play, which he admits to tossing off under deadline in the three weeks following 9/11, is an awkward mélange of war tragedy, history lecture and madcap farce that plays footsie with the fun, the interesting, the informative and even the artful, but keeps falling short in endless asides and digressions. It’s 2 1/2 hours of subpar writing made even harder to endure by a trio of particularly terrible performances by actors I will not name. With this script, they’ve already suffered enough. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 242-0080. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 17. $10-$28. All ages. Map

Grand Theft Pizza Party!

Comedy showcase featuring Bobby Hacker, the Portland Oregon THEM, Scott Moran and Andy Haynes of Seattle's People's Republic of Komedy, and Comedy Central vet Rory Scovel. BEN WATERHOUSE. Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash St., 226-0430. 9:30 pm Wednesday, Jan. 23. $5. 21+. Map

Mid-Winter Light and Laughter

Storyteller Eric Foxman, who spends his days managing the pharmacy at the Happy Valley New Seasons Market, delivers humorous short works by Wodehouse, Chekhov and O. Henry, among others. Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 223-4527. 3 pm Saturday, Jan. 26. $5-$10. All ages. Map

Musical Comedy Murders of 1940

This classic murder-mystery farce has singers dropping left and right. Rend me a tenor, if you will. BEN WATERHOUSE. Hillsboro Artists' Regional Theatre, 185 SE Washington St., Hillsboro., 693-7815. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Jan. 27. $7-$14. All ages. Map

The Neutrino Project

Why watch live, unedited improv when you could see a movie, acted and filmed on the fly by the ambitious folks at Curious Productions? Directed by Bob Ladewig, The Neutrino Project is shot at three locations—edited, scored and projected almost live. BEN WATERHOUSE. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215. 9:30 pm Fridays. Closes Feb. 22. $10. All ages. Map

Off Book

The New Group Theater Company combines forces with fledgling playwright David Gallic to help him get his first play out of his system. The bard pulls double duty here playing Corgan, an upbeat if lovelorn worker drone who realizes he is the star of his own comedic drama when he overhears his goofy narrator (Joel Korkowski) elucidating his every move. Director John Duncan makes a cameo as Director, stopping in to discuss the nature of theater and life in general with an enthusiastic cast as Gallic’s script references all the greatest hits from an Intro to Theater 101 required-reading list. Spontaneous musical outbursts and lengthy moments of uncertainty characterize this meta piece, which falls a little flat to an audience already exposed to Will Ferrell’s similar existential dilemma in Stranger Than Fiction. SAUNDRA SORENSON. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 312-6789. 7 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 2. $10, cash only. All ages. Map

Random Acts of Comedy

A "razor-sharp, hilarious exploration of miscommunication between the sexes in four one-acts" from FoxWell Productions. BEN WATERHOUSE. The Kingstad Center, 15450 SW Millikan Way, Beaverton., 626-6338. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 24-27. $12-$17. All ages. Map

Scratch PDX

Portland's monthly performance "open stage." BEN WATERHOUSE. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 10 pm Saturdays. $5. All ages. Map

Shining City

In this sublimely written play by Conor McPherson, Ian (Michael O’Connell), an ex-priest turned therapist, and John (Bruce Burkhartsmeier), his first, and possibly only, client, cope with the problem of John’s wife, Mari, who died in a car accident months ago but keeps showing up around the house. Third Rail’s production showcases the impressive talents of director Slayden Scott Yarbrough, whose touch brings out a lot of congenial humor in what could easily be a very dour show. He also made a fine move in casting Burkhartsmeier, who plays guilt-ridden John as an unexaggeratedly anxious wreck. He fidgets, scratches and tears up subtly and powerfully. As John works through his talking cure in Ian’s shabby office, we start to wonder who really needs the therapy. An apparition in the foyer is one thing, but Ian’s haunted by the perfectly solid mother of his child (Val Landrum) and a crisis of sexual identity. BEN WATERHOUSE. Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N Interstate Ave., Call 235-1101 for tickets. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 2. $16-$25. All ages. Map

Tales of Ordinary Madness

Stepán Simek directs his own translation of Petr Zelenka’s Czech hit, a crackling comedy full of good old-fashioned American-style dysfunction. Peter (Brian Allard) is a beer-swilling thirtysomething who follows his shut-in and sexual deviant friend Midge’s (an exuberantly goofy Shuhe Hawkins) black-magic advice to lure his girlfriend, Jeanette, back to him. Peter vacillates between midday delusions, watching his neighbors fuck (at their behest) and suffering through visits home, where his excitable mother (Dalene Young) donates blood obsessively and predicts her husband’s (an endearingly meek Michael Chambers) downfall. Dad, meanwhile, plays with beer bubbles and bemoans his old career as a radio mouthpiece for the Party. A truly theatrical act of desperation ties the madness up nicely, and anchoring performances by Young and Chambers provide a jarring few moments of heartbreak in the last act. See review. SAUNDRA SORENSON. The CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 23. $20-$23. All ages. Map

Tangoing with Tornadoes

This "choreopoem" by Renee Mitchell employs poetry, music and dance to explore domestic violence. Center for Self Enhancement, 3920 N Kerby Ave., 249-1721. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, 7 and 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 25-27. Free. All ages. Map

Twelfth Night

Too many bored directors, forced by tradition and economics to stage another goddamn Shakespeare, try to shoehorn a perfectly decent comedy into an awkward fancy-dress conceit or inappropriate political statement, but Jane Jones, down from Seattle to direct Portland Center Stage’s production of the mistaken-identity romantic comedy, has the good sense to leave the play alone. This is, without hyperbole, an entirely satisfying production. On the technical side, William Bloodgood’s set is modestly beautiful, Deborah Trout’s costumes are dazzling, Nancy Schertler’s lights are a show in their own right, and Joshua Kohl’s music is just delightful—but the ensemble, made up mostly of Ashland vets, could get along just fine without them. They’re all good, but Brad Bellamy stands out with an inspired take on Feste the fool that lands somewhere between Jack Nicholson and Sancho Panza. If you’re looking for real entertainment, this is it. BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 pm Sundays, noon Thursdays. Alternates with The Beard of Avon. See wweek.com or pcs.org for more details. Closes March 9. $16.50-$61.50. All ages. Map

Vampire Lesbians of Sodom

Years before Joss Whedon had even conceived of Angel, Charles Busch's duo of vampiric actresses were whooping it up through time. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 970-8874. 10:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays. Closes Feb. 16. $12. All ages. Map

Where's My Money?

John Patrick Shanley's anti-marital comedy may read like a particularly bitter dramatic interpretation of "Love Stinks," but in the hands of Ben Plont and the ensemble at Theatre Vertigo, it becomes a delightfully absurd skewering of the things we do to the people we love. The solid cast's spot-on comedic timing brings out the humor in even the most dismally angsty of Shanley's scenes. The play's paranormal theme—ex-boyfriend comes back from the dead to collect on an old debt—seems superfluous, but goddamn if it isn't hilarious. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 306-0870. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays. Closes Feb. 9. $15. Thursdays are pay what you will. All ages. Map

CLASSICAL

Ian Bostridge in recital

Tenor Ian Bostridge is the type of singer you've got to hear live to believe. It's not that Bostridge has an especially beautiful bel canto voice—he doesn't. But what he does bring to his singing is so much more important and rare: a communicative strength and imagination hardly matched by other singers of his generation. He is, in a word, it. If his matchless Schubert recordings for EMI are any indication, then his all-Schubert recital (thank you, Friends of Chamber Music!) will be the must-hear vocal event of Portland's winter calendar. STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., 777-7755. 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 24. Call 224-9842 for tickets. $14-$37. All ages. Map

Juxtapositions

PSU's new orchestra director, Ken Selden, offers another adventurous concert (there's a reason his orch nabbed an ASCAP award for Adventurous Programming last season), this time with a guest star, the Bach-in-a-bar-playing cellist Matt Haimovitz. Two works receive U.S. premieres: Wolfgang Rihm's (b. 1952) Ricercare in memoriam Luigi Nono, and PSU faculty member Bryan Johanson's Quick as a Wink, with Haimovitz soloing in the Schumann Cello Concerto and duoing with violinist Andy Simionescu in the Brahms Double Concerto, too. STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway., 248-4335. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 26. $8-$15. All ages. Map

Songs of Spirit

You just gotta love an artist with the balls to include a raving fan quote from a self-proclaimed defrocked priest among her press materials: "She carries us to depths and heights that the soul yearns to explore and where Spirit and soul soar in unison!" says one former cleric-turned-author by the name of Matthew Fox. Wow. Well, I saw Norma Gentile in her last Portland appearance at the Old Church in 2007, and if her singing was a touch wobbly or her super-sensitive singing a tad fussy, she was still an appealing low-key presence, all Mother Earth and crunchy New Age zen-happy vibes. Use that information as you will. STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 222-2031. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 26. $20-$25. All ages. Map

TASHI in the Carter-Messiaen Project

Consider the chamber-music ensemble TASHI as the classical-music equivalent of the Police. Both ensembles came together in the mid-1970s: TASHI in New York City; the Police in London. Both experienced a rapid rise to fame by either writing their own music (Sting, with the Police) or getting leading composers to write new music for them (Toru Takemitsu and Charles Wuorinen, writing for TASHI). And, eventually, rising solo careers killed both collectives. Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, pianist Peter Serkin, cellist Fred Sherry and violinist Ida Kavafian (the first two performers especially) skyrocketed to notable solo careers (and Sting, as you know, did the same). Well, the Police decided to give it another go 30 years later, and now TASHI's doing the same—their Chamber Music Northwest appearances, as part of the ambitious three day Carter-Messiaen Project (celebrating the 100th birthdays of 20th-century master composers Elliott Carter and Olivier Messiaen), reunite the original quartet together onstage for the first time in three long decades. Just like the Police. Coincidence? Doubt it. STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., 777-7755. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 25-27. Call 294-6400 for tickets. $10-$43. All ages. Map

DANCE

Diana Szeinblum

Szeinblum was an Argentinian ballet dancer before she was pulled in another direction, studying in Germany on scholarship and performing with maverick-in-progress Pina Bausch. When Szeinblum offers an encore to her 2003 Portland appearance with the dance/theater work Alaska, she, too will be accompanied by dancers and musicians who perform live. But her style departs from tradition in depicting—through gestural and pedestrian movement—the struggle of four characters to reveal their inner selves. The title refers to "a place we all recognize, but nobody ever went." When she and the company aren’t exploring space, personal or otherwise, they’ll conduct master classes for dancers and workshops for the Latino community. HEATHER WISNER. Portland State University, Hoffman Hall, 1825 SW Broadway., 725-3000. 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 30. $20-$25. All ages. Map

Riverdance

Not since the farewell tours of KISS, Cher and Barbra Streisand has the entertainment world suffered such a blow as the one dealt by the Riverdance farewell tour. Who, now, will lead the PBS pledge drive? And what will become of the smoke-machine manufacturers and Celtic-wig makers who’ve capitalized on the show’s considerable financial success? The mind reels—and jigs. Catch one last adroit, heel-clattering demonstration of Irish step dance before the flash is laid to rest. HEATHER WISNER. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 248-4335. 248-4335, 7:30 pm Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 Saturday, 1 and 6:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 22-27. $20-$62. All ages. Map

Tango Fire

Carolina Soler didn’t start the fire, but she’s certainly helped stoke it. The passion for tango that has blazed across the U.S. in the past decade has been fueled by touring shows like Forever Tango and films like Sally Potter’s Tango Lesson, which, in turn, have engendered a tango turismo phenomena in Buenos Aires. Soler is a resident of that city and a veteran of Teatro Colón’s resident ballet company; performing a tango piece ignited her own interest in the country’s national dance, with its sharp attack, elongated slides and Velcro-close partnering (which has less to do with smoldering lust than with the lack of real estate afforded by the cramped red-light bars where it all began). The four musicians, a singer and 10 dancers of Estampas Porteñas perform Tango Fire tonight. HEATHER WISNER. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway., 248-4335. 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 23. $20-$55. All ages. Map